The Advanced Research and Invention Agency to fund pioneering cohort of research students at the University of Exeter, Cornwall
A cohort of 20 postgraduate researchers will embark on a pioneering new Masters by Research (MbyRes) on ‘Engineering Ecosystem Resilience’ at the University of Exeter, Cornwall thanks to a £500,000 grant from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA).
The MbyRes programme – a first-of-its-kind pilot for ARIA – aims to develop a cohort of interdisciplinary researchers who are comfortable working at the edge of what is currently possible, challenging assumptions, and tackling complex problems where the answers are far from obvious in order to bring about a step-change for ecosystem resilience.
The funding will cover home tuition fees, a generous research and training support grant and a programme of cohort activities designed to foster interdisciplinary research, collaboration and innovation. The students will be based within the University’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation (CEC) in Penryn.
Dr M D Sharma, Senior Research Fellow at CEC, and lead applicant for MAST-EER, said: “What attracted us to ARIA’s Engineering Ecosystem Resilience opportunity space was the recognition that no single discipline, methodology or research project is going to provide all the answers. The challenge demands a diversity of perspectives and approaches.”
Dr Erik Postma, Associate Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at CEC and co-applicant for Mast-EER, added: “Rather than exploring a single idea in a single study system, Mast-EER adopts ARIA’s ‘Opportunity Seed philosophy’ to create a cohort of 20 talented researchers to investigate many different aspects of ecosystem resilience in parallel; 20 interconnected pieces of the puzzle. The result is a highly cost-effective way to explore ambitious, ‘big if true’ questions, generate new scientific insights, and identify promising directions for future research and innovation.”
Ecosystems provide essential services that underpin human wellbeing and economic prosperity, serving as critical natural infrastructure that supports food systems, climate stability, biodiversity and the sustainable provision of natural resources. Yet our ability to understand, predict and influence how these complex living systems respond to environmental change remains limited.
ARIA’s Engineering Ecosystem Resilience opportunity space seeks to develop the tools, technologies and scientific understanding needed to measure, forecast and strengthen ecosystem resilience. By combining advances in areas such as ecology, environmental sensing, genomics, robotics, artificial intelligence and predictive modelling, the field aims to unlock new capabilities for supporting healthy ecosystems and resilient communities in a rapidly changing world.
Founded in 2023 and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, ARIA funds breakthrough research and development in underexplored areas to catalyse new paths to prosperity for the UK and the world. It aims to empower scientists and engineers to pursue research that is too speculative, too hard, or too interdisciplinary to pursue elsewhere.
Yannick Wurm, Programme Director at ARIA, said: “Urgent, hard problems aren’t solved by well-established approaches. Humanity-scale challenges need people who think outside the box. We’re backing early-career researchers who combine a deep understanding of the complexity of ecological systems with fluency in biotechnology, robotics and AI.
“Supporting communities of responsible innovators who have an authentic ambition to redefine our relationship with nature is precisely the kind of bet ARIA wants to be making.”
Alongside the Centre for Ecology and Conservation’s internationally recognised leadership in ecology, evolution and ecosystem science, MAST-EER will draw on expertise spanning environmental modelling, data science, genomics, climate impacts and environmental engineering, supported by a network of collaborators across UK universities and partner organisations.
Students will join a vibrant postgraduate research community and benefit from cross-disciplinary supervision, specialist training and opportunities to engage with researchers and practitioners working at the forefront of ecosystem resilience, from academia and industry to policy and entrepreneurship. This combination of disciplinary depth, collaborative culture and national partnerships creates an exceptional environment in which to explore ambitious new ideas.
Interested students can find out more and apply here via the University website.
